Electronic Health Record-related
Acronyms

AHIC

American Health Information Community (The Community) - Federally-chartered commission to provide input and recommendations to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on how electronic health records

AHIMA

American Health Information Management Association

AHRQ

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

ANSI

American National Standards Institute - a non-profit organization that administers and coordinates the U.S. voluntary standardization activities

ASPE

Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Continuity of Care Record
- A standard specification being developed jointly by ASTM International (an SDO), the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS), and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). It is intended to foster and improve continuity of patient care, to reduce medical errors, and to assure at least a minimum standard of health information transportability when a patient is referred or transferred to, or is otherwise seen by, another provider.

CDA

Clinical Document Architecture

CDC

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

CDSS

Clinical Decision Support System

CHI

Consolidated Health Informatics Initiative - Initiative to establish federal health information interoperability standards as the basis for electronic health data transfer in all activities and projects and among all agencies and departments (ONCHIT Initiative)

CPOE

Computerized Physician/Provider Order Entry

DSL

Digital Subscriber Line

EHR

Electronic Health Record

EMR

Electronic Medical Record

GUI

Graphical User Interface

FHA

Federal Health Architecture - ONCHIT program to create a consistent federal framework to facilitate communication and collaboration among all health care entities to improve citizen access to health-related information and high-quality services

Health Information Technology – Frequently associated with the OHCHIT Health Information Technology Adoption Initiative in partnership with the George Washington University, Partners/Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy and Brigham and Women's Hospital

HITRC

Health Information Technology Resource Center also known as the AHRQ National Resource Center for Health Information Technology (the National Resource Center), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

HITSP

Health Information Technology Standards Panel

HL7

Health Level Seven - a standard development organization that supports the development and maintenance of a health data exchange protocol. "'Level Seven' refers to the highest level of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) communications model for Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) - the application level. The application level addresses definition of the data to be exchanged, the timing of the interchange, and the communication of certain errors to the application. The seventh level supports such functions as security checks, participant identification, availability checks, exchange mechanism negotiations and, most importantly, data exchange structuring."

HRSA

Health Resources and Services Administration

IHI

Institute of Healthcare Improvement

IOM

Institute of Medicine

ISB

Inter-SNO
Bridge - is a term used by Connecting for Health to refer to the interface or point of contact between SNOs.

From the publication, The Connecting for Health Common Framework: Technical Issues and Requirements for Implementation. Connecting for Health is a public-private collaborative of more than 100 organizations representing a diverse array of private, public, and not-for-profit groups.

ISO

International Organization for Standardization

LAN

Local Area Network

LHII

Local Health Information Infrastructure

NEDSS

National Electronic Disease Surveillance System - CDC initiative to advance the development of efficient, integrated, and interoperable surveillance systems at federal, state, and local levels

NCVHS

National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics - Public advisory body to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

NHII

National Health Information Infrastructure - ASPE initiative to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and overall quality of health and health care through a comprehensive network of interoperable systems of clinical, public health, and personal health information. (Now incorporated into ONCHIT)

NHIN

Nationwide Health Information Network - A network that would link disparate health care
information systems together to allow patients, physicians, hospitals, public
health agencies and other authorized users across the nation to share clinical
information in real-time under stringent security, privacy and other
protections. Described in the Framework for
Strategic Action: "The Decade of Health Information Technology: Delivering Consumer-centric and Information-rich Health Care."

As used by Connecting for Health, "(t)he NHIN is the sum of all SNOs. It is a network of networks whose
participants agree to the Common Framework. The NHIN is not a separately funded
entity; it is a framework of cooperation and compliance.3 If the individual SNOs externally
facing interfaces work, the NHIN will work. There are no required "top level" services in
the NHIN; at the national level, adherence to standards and policies, however defined
and affected, are the key elements. All the actual infrastructure of the network is either
hosted within the SNOs, or uses the existing internet." From the publication, The Connecting for Health Common Framework: Technical Issues and Requirements for Implementation. Connecting for Health is a public-private collaborative of more than 100 organizations representing a diverse array of private, public, and not-for-profit groups.

NIH

National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

ODBC

Open Data Base Connectivity

ONCHIT or ONC

Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Record Locator Service - An index that lets clinicians find out
where the patient information they seek is
stored so that they can request it directly from
its source.

From the publication, The Connecting for Health Common Framework: Overview and Principles. Connecting for Health is a public-private collaborative of more than 100 organizations representing a diverse array of private, public, and not-for-profit groups.

RPMS

Resource and Patient Management System

SDN

Secure Data Network

SDOs

U.S. Standards Development Organizations

SNO

Subnetwork
organization - As used by Connecting for Health, "(a) SNO is any group of entities (regionally or non-regionally defined) that agree
to communicate clinical data with one another using a single Record Locator Service
(RLS), using shared policies and technological standards, and operating together under a
single SNO-wide set of policies and contractual agreements. A SNO has two sets of interfaces, one internal, which binds its member entities together, and one external,
which is where traffic to and from other SNOs and outside entities come from."

From the publication, The Connecting for
Health Common Framework: Technical Issues and
Requirements for Implementation. Connecting for Health is a public-private collaborative of more than 100 organizations representing a
diverse array of private, public, and not-for-profit groups.